Category: speaking up

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Mark Twain

This year has been a kind of a travelling year for me. To Virginia, in the U.S and far from my Sydney home, for a conference (and a meet-up with friends). To Melbourne. Twice so far. To Adelaide and to Canberra, many times each.

And, as Twain wrote in his book about travels {The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It) , travel allows you to see people, in all their humanness, in a different way. You see the architectural choices that differ from region to region. You participate in the natural landscape, both developed and undeveloped. Your sense of the seasons changes. The understanding of other places and ways to live grows.

I find that travel leaves me pleasantly haunted for light-drenched other worlds – the places I have visited and the home to which I return.

Take Virginia, for example. Not my first visit to the States but my first visit post the November election and results, and my first trip to a Southern-ish (southeastern) state. I flew from Sydney to LA; from LA to Charlotte, North Carolina; from Charlotte to Newport News, VA.

I would call Newport News a small city, a planned city. Somewhat reminiscent of my trips to Canberra (but that description will come later). Except for the chain stores and chain restaurants. Barnes & Noble. Chilli’s. Olive Garden. Red Lobster.

I walked. A lot. The almost-spring weather was colder than I am used to but burst into gloriously warming sunshine mid-day. I walked from the university to the Mariner’s Museum ( a 30 minute walk, whose length shocked my co-presenters and the lecturers from the university. ‘We use cars’ one told me. Indeed, the only other walkers I saw the whole week were fitness walkers , on specially designated nature and walking trails. displaying eerily beautiful lakes with forests of a kind you just don’t see in Australia. Deer even).

The history sold me. I uber-ed to a plantation home, one that had been used by the Confederates to shore up supplies and to shoot at Yankees from redoubts. I trailed along the famous area of the Monitor and Merrimac battle. Gracious, generous friends (I would say internet friends but we met that day in person and they are more than passerbys on social media) drove me to historic Williamsburg. Living museums reenacting Colonial and Revolutionary-era life.

I was there, rooted in the smells and air and memories of a part of America’s history.

I was there, talking to friendly strangers and taxi and uber drivers, of their lives, of the minimum wage, of health care and the military and opportunities and education costs.

We may differ in our understanding of government but there was no difference in our humanity. They were a friendly bunch, especially to weird Aussie women who travel alone and speak fast and funny. I hope that we Australians are as friendly to those who travel here.

At the conference, I met people from Kenya, Cameroon, the Philippines, Ireland, Turkey, in addition to those from the States. I was the only Australian. Our sharing of stories of lives around the world highlighted for me, not our differences, but our similarities. We all longed for many of the same things, for meaning, connection, intention, ‘the good life’ (and what that means was a discussion in itself. An unfinished discussion.).

In our diversity there also existed some homogeneity. There was open welcoming: “Come”, one said. “Come and stay with me in New York for a few days. Extend your trip.” But that will have to wait for another time. next conference, perhaps?

Because every time I travel I rekindle the urge to travel more. Big trips and small trips. Local and afar. My travel appetite is never satiated.

I lean forward to “the next crazy venture beneath the skies” (Jack Kerouac, On the Road).

I realise that in my life, since I was a teen, a young mum, a business owner, a teacher -and in my work and study and careers -the motif of endurance has often been pushed – snap! in place – right into the forefront. But when I endure I forget to participate. I forget to be active in my life. I am reactive rather than generative.

The trouble with endurance is that, sometimes, when I am so busy enduring, my life slips by. I stay stuck. I seem unable to become unstuck.

Pope Francis, in ‘The Name of God is Mercy’ reminds us that “The name of God is mercy. There are no situations we cannot get out of, we are not condemned to sink into quicksand.”

This, I think, is important to remember.

There are some people (and some organisations) that exist by feeding us an unrelenting diet of belief in our own inadequacy. You will never be quite right, they say. Do this, be more, try more, study more ( or buy this…and follow that..).

But, you know, this is my only life. Now. As Pope Francis noted, there is mercy – for me, as well as for others.

What would this look like in practical terms? The idea of mercy and participation in the place of only endurance?

I think I can see some practical jolts, that shock and startle participation and change.

It’s okay to have free time. Really. This is hard for me as I like to get up, read my morning book, walk or do other exercise, work on to do lists and have-tos….but then I never get to want-tos. I never allow myself to sit and drink tea and just relax. Showing mercy to ourselves and others might just start here. With some free time. Without the nagging sense of “I should be doing…”

You are okay. Don’t let yourself and others fuel any inadequacy. You don’t need to lose 5 kg or be the best-all-the-time or always be the mediator. You don’t always get to be ignored either. You can speak up. Your voice matters.

And, if you’re not okay , then do something about it. Now. Seek help. Now. Read. Look at retraining or adding to your knowledge. Change jobs – have a variety of jobs, a portfolio of jobs rather than one main work. Seek counselling. Just do it.

Then, finally, look at this list and throw it away. You don’t need me to tell you how to participate in life. Heck, I don’t even need this list (though writing it is an awesome reminder for me). Just do something today that makes you participate rather than endure. Then do more tomorrow. Laugh. Flick your hair. Grab a coffee. Look up that course or job online. Become a bartender. Write a blog post. Make biscuits with your children. Go for a walk – on a different route.

Because nobody can tell you how to participate in life. You have to do it. (Though mercy, love and support from others can help, right?)

Ben Elton’s book ‘Time and Time Again’ details travel backwards in time, to correct an event that had world-wide catastrophic events. At book club, someone asked the rest of us: ‘If you could go back in time, what would you change about your life?’ A personal twist on the novel’s societal concern.

My immediate reaction was ‘Nothing’. I made the decisions I did, the choices I enacted, based upon who I was at the time, with the information then available. How could I change that? Indeed, to change those decisions would mean to change me, to change my family of seven sons.

Does this mean that all my choices and decisions have been good?

Far from it.

They are, however, mine. They make me whom I am today, both the good and bad. They form the substance of my relationships – with family, with God, with others – and the essence of my theological, philosophical, and personal understanding.

Well, I am. I am not a victim or even a survivor. I am not an over-comer. I am a woman who has experienced abuse and, in decrying the abuse of myself and my sons and the abuse of other women, I am strong. I am not broken and no, my sons do not come from a broken home. We are well, thank you very much. Our home has peace. We grow in virtue and compassion. We have a radar or sixth sense for abuse and control in and of others. We can see through the bullshit (excuse the language, but we can).

I made a choice to marry young, to continue to be a rescuer, because that is who I was at age nineteen. I didn’t deserve the abuse. But, be sure, my seven sons from that abusive relationship are beings I would never wish away.

I have made many mistakes in my life. But having seven children and homeschooling are not any of the mistakes. To erase or to manipulate my history in one swift time machine trip would be to erase the good with the bad.

I am who I am. I fight for others. I own my choices and stand firm against abuse. I am not a victim. I am whole.

In a life well lived. In a life that I plan to continue to live well.

In fact, there may just be truth in the old adage ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.

What happens when women speak up, speak up about abuse and control, start afresh, move on, create a happy life for themselves and their children?

I will tell you what happens. The abusive partner fears losing control and takes steps to punish the woman for moving on and for daring to speak up for other women, against abuse. He threatens. He tries to manipulate the children. he generates fear in the woman, he implies possible legal action, so much so that she almost stops speaking up. For herself, and for others.

Why can’t he move on? She ponders.

And – Maybe I should stop speaking about women and abuse because, you know, he is causing trouble. Again.

Let me start with the first question. Why can’t he move on? To understand this one has to understand the mind of those who manipulate and control and abuse.

“Physical aggression by a man toward his partner is abuse, even if it happens only once. If he raises a fist; punches a hole in the wall; throws things at you; blocks your way; restrains you; grabs, pushes, or pokes you; or threatens to hurt you, that’s physical abuse. He is creating fear and using your need for physical freedom and safety as a way to control you.”

Step two reminds the woman of why, exactly, he can’t let go. They, the abusers, see their partners (yes, even ex-partners) and their children (especially their children) as possessions.The abuser become almost crazy at the thought of losing control over the woman – or, if it seems that they have lost control, they become almost crazy at the thought of losing control over their children. (Although, who am I fooling with the ‘almost’. Seriously.). Children become a weapon in the fight against the woman, a fight always couched in terms of ‘justice’ and ‘charity’.

The third step allows the woman to separate the rhetoric from the truth. She comes to see that he never lets go because (in some families) he uses religious language, and the misguided support of some in the church, as a weapon. It is a misuse of such religious language, of course.

An understanding of the initial question (Why can’t he let go?) does not always help with the next question the woman asks. Should she stop speaking up about abuse, since he may use the speaking up in retribution?

The choice is hers, and hers alone. But I am reminded of a history of silencing people and groups who have suffered, the don’t-rock-the-boat mentality, and how, in the end, that doesn’t serve to help women like me. Or the woman of this narrative.

To speak up is to raise awareness. To name abuse, for those who are able, for those who are safe (for safety of women and children is of prime importance) is to give it less power.

And to continue to speak up, even when threatened or when someone tries to silence you, takes courage.

It, the speaking up, is not for everyone. There are concerns for mental and physical health and protection. But for some (for me) it is both a necessity and a virtue
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